Confusion, Long Lines at Polling Sites

UPDATED | Despite last-minute efforts by officials in New York and New Jersey to help storm victims vote, confusion, lack of electricity and long lines still plagued polling sites throughout the area Tuesday.

On the playground of Scholars’ Academy on Beach 104th St. in Rockaway Park, several voting locations from the western end of the Rockaway peninsula were consolidated into one tent-covered polling site. Problems started immediately, as poll workers arrived to find that generators, heaters and lights were nowhere to be found.

“It just got a little chaotic,” said pollworker Estel Lyons. “We had it planned the best we could and there were a few glitches.”

Zuma Press

People gather to vote at a makeshift tent, which is used as a polling station in Rockway.

Marie Howley of Rockaway Park used a rental car to drive in from Rockville Centre on Long Island, where she has been staying with her daughter. Her only complaint was lack of sufficient light in the tents. “It’s dark in there,” she said. “You had to hold up the card to see. I think I filled in all the holes correctly.”

In hard-hit Hoboken, various snafus caused long waits for voters to cast ballots at a combined polling location for two districts on Grand Street. The doors of the Multi Service Center of Hoboken weren’t open at 6 a.m., poll workers struggled to find a key to open the operational voting machines and voters were told they might have to cast paper ballots, said Joe Maziarski, a 27-year-old Hoboken resident at the polling site.

“People weren’t really happy with that idea,” said Maziarski, a TV producer.

The machines were eventually opened but the tables lacked signs directing people to their appropriate polling district, and voters took it upon themselves to guide people, Maziarski said. “It was very disorganized. You couldn’t tell who was running the organization,” he said.

Sandy even threw some kinks in the voting process in parts of New York City where the lights stayed on throughout the storm.

In Park Slope, voters who usually cast their ballots at John Jay High School, now serving as an shelter for storm evacuees, were directed to PS 282, more than a half a mile away. Some residents had received fliers passed out on Monday by Assembyman James F. Brennan redirecting them to the new site.

Lines stretched outside the school and around the block. But displaced voters got a break and were directed to a separate entrance where lines were shorter. Those who already knew their election district were processed quickly, in about half an hour.

It was unclear if the shorter lines were because of lower turnout from residents redirected from their usual polling places.

At the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School in midtown Manhattan, polling workers said that around noon, they had run out of affidavit ballot envelopes needed for voters who weren’t registered at the polling site.

Jon Protas/The Wall Street Journal

A double line of voters stretches around the block as people wait to vote on West End Ave at 95th street in Manhattan.

“Governor Cuomo sits up there in Albany and signs an executive order, but he’s not in the trenches,” said coordinator Fred Kelly.

Another Board of Elections worker said some voters had submitted ballots without envelopes, meaning their votes wouldn’t count.

Voters were instructed to try other polling places in midtown. “I figured there would be a long line, but I thought I’d be able to vote here,” said 22-year-old James Bedell, who lives in East Village but works as a bank analyst in midtown. He said of the confusion at the high school, “A lot of people don’t even know what they’re supposed to do.”

At some sites, voting was going smoothly. Voters have no wait time to use a polling booth at one Teterboro site that is accepting votes from displaced Moonachie residents.

Eleanor Madison, 77, displaced by the storm, said her town had shuttles to Teterboro so they could vote.

“We had calls from our police department,” she said about the voting change. “But not everybody is getting the calls. People have told me,” she said, guessing their numbers were not listed or registered.

“They are calling people but I say they should go around with a megaphone,” she said.

Dale Birnbaum, a small-business owner from South Brunswick who has been displaced by Sandy, struggled to figure out how to vote electronically. She couldn’t easily find information on the state’s website, and resorted to contacting friends on Facebook. She eventually contacted the Middlesex County clerk’s office for an application, but had yet to receive a response Tuesday.

“I want to vote so badly,” said Birnhaum, who is staying with her daughter in West New York and is going to try to vote provisionally in Hudson County. “I have local people I would love to vote for but I just want to vote for the president.”

Associated Press

Poll worker Lisa Amico, right, helps voters by flashlight in a dark and unheated tent serving as a polling site in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island.

New Jersey residents who chose to vote electronically were facing confusion and uncertainty whether their votes would be counted.

Kate Supple, a 29-year-old Jersey City resident who was displaced by Sandy and staying in Manhattan, emailed her application to the Hudson County clerk Monday. Supple said she received a brief email acknowledgement of her application but has yet to receiver her ballot, and was worried that her vote wouldn’t be counted.

Poll worker Lisa Amico, right, helps voters by flashlight in a dark and unheated tent serving as a polling site in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island.

Several confused voters showed up Tuesday morning at PS 288 in Coney Island. A sign posted on the gate told them “school closed. No voting here.” A smaller sign directed people to 3001 west 1st street, 25 blocks away.

Martha Gonzalez, 23, showed up to vote but quickly realized she couldn’t do so here. “My Internet is down in my household,” said Gonzalez, who lost her job at a liquor store that was damaged in the storm. “I thought it was here.”

William Soto, 54, rode his bicycle to PS 288 with the hope of voting. When he saw the sign the retired mechanic got ready to turn right back around and go home.

“Obama, I’m sorry, I’m not going there,” he said about the new polling location. “It’s too much for me.”

Lines were long but the mood was subdued and civil at Bethel Baptist Church in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. The area was largely untouched by the storm.

Several people had heard of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order allowing voters in nine counties affected by Sandy, including New York City, Westchester and Long Island, to vote at any site by affidavit ballot and wondered allowed if it might help them skip 45-minute waits to vote. But no one appeared to leave to try their luck.